Category: Strout, Elizabeth

Anything is Possible is a luminous collection of short stories tied to Elizabeth Strout’s previous novel, My Name Is Lucy Barton, which told the story of a hospitalised novelist — the titular Lucy — coming to terms with her destitute childhood during evasive conversations with her estranged mother. It was a delectably quiet, understated, but powerful novella; one of those books you read, and enjoy, but only fully appreciate once you’ve let it marinate.

Anything is Possible is kind of, but not exactly, a sequel to My Name is Lucy Barton. It is set in and around Lucy’s hometown of Amgash, Illinois, and indeed, she features as a main character in one of the stories. But this book has more of a connection to Strout’s Olive Kitteridge than My Name is Lucy Barton, in that is comprised of distinct, but interconnected short stories, each of which delves into the minutiae of small-town life.

The book focuses on the complexities, ambiguities and vulnerabilities of everyday people. As with any collection of short stories, some are more resonant than others. Sister — featuring Lucy Barton, her sister Vicky, and brother Pete — is worth the cover price alone (even for those who’ve not read My Name is Lucy Barton); so too the final story, Gift, which stars the Barton’s second cousin Abel. Really, they’re all gems, each of the nine stories demonstrating Strout’s incredible gift. Her understated prose cuts through to the core brilliantly.

Elizabeth Strout’s My Name is Lucy Barton is a delectably quiet, understated, but powerful novella. It is about a woman unravelling the tapestry of her life, with particular emphasis on the five days she spent with her estranged mother by her side during a nine week hospital stay. Don’t let its page count fool you; this is a story of great depth and plenty of nuance, brought to life through Strout’s flawless, elegiac prose.
The novel is about relationships, predominantly between Lucy and her mother, but also with her father, a professor from college, a neighbour, a former writing teacher, the doctor who cared for her during her stay in hospital, and many more. Strout exposes the complexity of these relations, unveiling the dark undercurrent that runs between some, divulging parochial love affairs and unjustified, one-sided friendships and affiliations founded on falsehoods. But whereas other writers might do this clunkily, with long-winded passages of meandering lyricism, Strout’s narrative maintains its distinct poetry without the unnecessary accoutrements.

My Name is Lucy Barton delivers hard, emotional truths. Honest and affecting, it’s a real treat, and achieves more in its 200 pages than most other novels you’ll read this year. This is storytelling at its deceptively-simplest and finest.